


Not only blood

by josephides



Category: Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs, Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephides/pseuds/josephides
Summary: Kara hadn’t wanted to go to college. She’d wanted to stay in Aspen Creek, work at the motel like she’d been doing every summer, maybe start to help out with the pack once in a while. But her parents had wanted her to and she’d felt so guilty letting them down again so she’d given in. It was only going to be a few years of her hopefully quite long life – so what did it matter?
Relationships: Bran Cornick/Leah Cornick
Comments: 19
Kudos: 245





	Not only blood

At school, once, someone had asked, “Who’s that?”

Kara turned to look. Leah was waiting, leaning against her new Audi. She had her sunglasses on and her hair up and was wearing a blouse that Kara had herself, but in green, and a pair of skinny jeans. She had a pair of sky-high heels on, the kind with the red soles. “Oh, that’s— that’s my mom,” she said.

Because it was kind of true.

*

Leah gave her the sex talk when she was fifteen and started her period. Kara was a late starter, which her human mom said was probably because of the _trauma_.

The whole thing was messy and horrid, like it wasn’t bad enough turning furry, now she had to bleed for four days as well? What the heck.

She complained about this to Leah after the second month, who frowned. “That’s easy to solve. We’ll put you on the Pill.”

This caused a row because of course Kara told her Mom who _freaked out_ and even when Kara explained she said she forbade it, like somehow she thought Kara was doing it because she just wanted to have sex. Leah just shrugged and got a prescription from somewhere and a three-month supply of pills was delivered through her door without her having to do anything. “Bran says it’s fine,” Leah said. As if that was all that mattered.

Then came the sex talk. 

Kara later learnt that Leah’s sex talk hadn’t been like anybody else’s sex talk. There was no ‘Insert Tab A into Slot B’ or ‘when a man and a woman love each other very much…’.

No, Leah’s sex talk was messy. It was descriptive. It was, well, _mortifyingly_ thorough. It also lasted for a week and Kara had no choice in the matter because Leah was her Alpha’s mate and an order from her was an order from him. Kara was physically incapable of disobeying.

“I’m going to give you a couple of days to think about this,” Leah finished after the first, excruciating hour, shuffling together the drawings she had made and tapping them on the table so they all lined up. She handed them to Kara. “And then we’ll have another talk.”

“I really don’t think—“

“Oh, you’ll have questions. Trust me. And there’s more I want to cover.” Leah smiled. Leah had three smiles. She had the ‘I want to kill you but can’t smile’, she had the ‘this is my I’m up to no good smile’ and then the ‘this is my real smile’. You didn’t see the last one very often so when she gave it, Kara took it for the compliment it was.

In the end, Kara did have some questions, mostly inspired by a popular fictional book series that she was secretly reading at night, under the covers. She returned to the Marrok’s house when she knew Bran was out and asked her questions, face blazing the entire time and staring at the grain of the Marrok’s very nice dining table.

Leah listened with interest, clarified a few points, then got out a fresh sheet of paper and started to draw the outline of a woman’s body. “All right. Let’s talk about erogenous zones. Not all of them will work for you – every woman is different – so you’ll need to experiment. Some of these you can test out yourself but others you’ll need a partner.” 

After the detailed drawing, where – purely through Leah’s description – Kara got a pretty good idea of what turned Leah on (ohmigod), Leah then ‘in the interest of fairness’ drew an outline of a man’s body.

Bran came home in the middle of this revealing conversation and Kara almost fell over herself to cover the sheets of papers. This, naturally, only encouraged Bran who came over to see what was going on. He leaned over Leah’s shoulder. “Ah. Sex Ed,” he said, cheerfully.

Kara covered her face with her hands. This couldn’t be happening.

“Did I miss anything?” Leah asked him, chewing on the end of her pencil.

He held up the piece of paper, studying it thoughtfully. “No. I don’t think so. I’m particularly impressed with your rendition of this, though,” Bran said, pointing at what was Kara was pretty sure was his penis. The penis. _The drawing of the penis_. Oh god, she thought, was it _Bran’s penis?_

Now all she could think about was the fact that Bran had a penis. _Penis penis penis._ She prayed that the pack had been joking when they said he was psychic.

Leah snorted. She nudged her husband. “You’ve embarrassed her. Go away.”

The third talk was mostly logistics. The logistics of having sex with a human. It was pretty painful but in a different way.

“Unfortunately, your first sexual experiences will probably be human men. Boys,” Leah corrected quickly, with a frown. “Now, I’ve never personally had sex with a human but I know many women who have, for whatever reason. Obviously, it’s very similar except you can crush him like a twig in the heat of the moment as you might forget yourself.”

Kara’s mouth dropped open. “So, what, I could kill him?”

“No, honey, more like… seriously maim. He would probably scream before you did some real damage.”

It crossed Kara’s mind later – years later – that maybe Leah’s detailed sex talk had been a round-a-bout way to put Kara off sex with a boy because if that was the case, it definitely worked. At least until she got to college and met her first age-appropriate Other, a quarter-fae boy who was more than capable of taking anything Kara could give him.

The fourth talk was about consent. And for that Leah invited Anna. 

*

Kara’s parents drove her to college and cried whilst they helped her unpack her things into her dorm. She had her own room, which Bran had secured for her by, she suspected, bribing someone important and she listened to her mom talk about all the friends she’d make, all the things she’d learn, and basically Kara stood there and thought about how much bullshit this experience was.

She hadn’t wanted to go to college. She’d wanted to stay in Aspen Creek, work at the motel like she’d been doing every summer, maybe start to help out with the pack once in a while. But her parents had wanted her to and she’d felt so guilty letting them down _again_ so she’d given in. It was only going to be a few years of her hopefully quite long life – so what did it matter? And she wasn’t that far away from home, her real home, she’d made sure of that.

A month later, Leah turned up at her dorm, cracked open a window and told her she stank. “Get up. Shower. We’re going out.”

Kara was yanked from her nest on her bed, where she had been writing an essay in a desultory fashion, and ejected from her room towards the shower. She watched a strange woman go inside instead. “Who’s that?”

“She’s going to clean that so it’s habitable again,” Leah said, closing the door on her. “Don’t worry, she’s seen worse.”

Leah took her to a salon and had them wash and style her hair and give her a blow out. As she was having her hair cut, a super friendly guy gave her a manicure and pedicure which was a totally pointless exercise given in two weeks time she’d turn into a furry monster and the polish would have gone.

But it looked pretty in the meantime. 

Then she was taken for an expensive lunch, where Leah fed her green things and steak, and told her funny stories about the pack and afterwards – still reeling from the sheer quantity of red meat she had consumed – Leah took her shopping for new clothes and a bunch of stuff to make Kara’s dorm 'more suitable'. This included a big, fluffy beanbag for when she was a wolf, a new rug, some towels, a fancy mirror, some curtains, Egyptian cotton bedding, cushions… “Leah, this is too much,” Kara said, mentally tallying up the cost.

“Kara, I’m a millionaire,” Leah said breezily. Then she thought about it. “Billionaire? I don’t know.” It was clear she didn’t care, either. “Let’s get you some make-up. You don’t need it but it’s expected.”

Loaded down with shopping, they returned to her dorm room, which was now spotless and smelled of pine. Leah set about transforming the space. The rug miraculously covered up the old, slightly sticky carpet. Her single comforter was replaced with a plush double and eclectic decorative cushions and a fluffy bedspread. Fairy lights were strung up over the windows, surrounding the new curtains. The big comfy beanbag was positioned in a corner, under a standard lamp with a stack of books. The fancy mirror was propped up on her desk with the new make-up.

“I’ll order you a new desk and chair,” Leah said, tapping her finger on the cheap pine. “This is hideous.”

“I think it belongs to the college,” Kara said hesitantly.

She shrugged. “We’ll put it in storage. I’ll organize it.” She turned to Kara. “I’m coming back in three weeks to visit. I expect to be introduced to a friend or two. I’ll take you out for lunch.”

Kara opened her mouth to say that she hadn’t _made_ any friends. Then she closed it. “Okay,” she said, resolutely. She could try making friends. How hard could it be?

“Good girl.” Leah held out her arms expectantly and Kara came forward to give her a hug. Leah didn’t really volunteer hugs very often. The good thing about them when she did, though, was that she squeezed really hard. “Try to shower more frequently. Please. Even humans have noses.”

Leah left and though Kara would never have ever described her as a ‘chatty’ person, her dorm room was suddenly very quiet.

It smelled like home, though. Everything Leah had handled smelled like the Aspen Creek pack. She picked up a cushion and hugged it and then went to open her door, see who else was around.

*

College was better than school, in that no one knew she came from Aspen Creek – known for being ‘weird’ – and people seemed to expect, even _encourage_ , individuality. The fact that Kara didn’t like to drink, could consume two burgers and fries in one sitting, and didn’t seem to need much sleep was just put down to the wild ways of college ‘youth’.

The next time Leah visited, she took Kara and her two new friends out for an expensive lunch. She introduced herself as Kara’s cousin and put on her best human behaviors, which Kara didn’t realize she had. She asked questions about her friends’ backgrounds and families, as if she was really interested. She talked about their courses. Their professors. If her smile was erring slightly on the ‘I want to kill you’ spectrum, Bella and Cai didn’t notice it. _They_ thought Leah was the height of sophisticated cool.

“I have good feelings about these two,” Leah told her, when she was hugging her goodbye tightly. “I think you’ve made some lifelong friends. Well. Their lives.”

*

The next time Leah visited, she brought Bran with her.

“He insisted,” she said, rolling her eyes.

In direct contrast to Leah’s typical smartness, Bran was wearing worn tennis shoes, jeans with a hole in them and a T-shirt with a cartoon wolf on the front. “A little on the nose, don’t you think, Bran?” Kara asked, hugging him.

“Leah bought it for me,” he said with an amused smile. He poked around her dorm room. As she had said she would, Leah had replaced her furniture. Kara now had a sleek glass desk and a comfy desk-chair which Cai had told her with a laugh was an Eames, which was apparently important. She’d also sent her a little refrigerator, which meant that Kara now had a second supply of snacks for whenever she was hungry.

Bran jumped into the beanbag and squirmed around until he was comfortable. It was big enough to fit three – and often did. Kara’s dorm room had become a popular place to hang out, a bit like their living room in Aspen Creek. It wasn’t unusual for Kara to come back from class and find someone curled up with a book. She loved it.

“It’s nice,” Bran said, surveying the space. He smiled widely. “I had no idea college dorms were so fancy.”

“Ignore him,” Leah told Kara, who was at a loss to explain that it had been his wife who had made it ‘fancy’. “He’s teasing me via you.” She had kicked off her heels and was lying on Kara’s bed, reading one of Kara’s text books. She lowered it to look at her husband, then at Kara. “My _boyfriend_ over there would like to meet your boyfriend. Officially.”

“Erm,” Kara said, flushing. How did they know? She had mentioned Hugo _once_ , she thought very off-hand, to Leah on the phone a couple of weeks before. She’d been very careful. “I mean. He’s not really. Um. We haven’t discussed. _Uhhhh_.”

Both Leah and Bran gave her such similar, big toothy smiles, it was almost scary. Like being faced with two sharks. Or werewolves, she guessed.

“That’s fine. We’d still like to meet him,” Bran said, crossing his feet at his ankles. “We can be discrete, can’t we, Leah?”

“Oh, very. Very discrete.”

“Um. It’s. It might be kinda awkward?” she squeaked. “Him meeting my… my family?”

“Perhaps we could just accidentally _bump_ into him,” Leah suggested thoughtfully.

Bran sniffed the air. “I could probably track him across campus if necessary.”

There was no way she was getting out of this, Kara realized. No way at all. 

*

“My word, well done,” Leah said admiringly when Kara waved to get Hugo’s attention. This got her a very sharp look from her husband. “What? Look at him. He’s _extremely_ good-looking.”

“Thank you for reinforcing that as if it was something I could have possibly missed,” Bran said drily. “I’ll take this moment to remind you that it’s not socially acceptable to flirt with your _cousin’s_ boyfriend.”

Leah's expression was wry. “I’ll try to hold myself back.”

Oh, this was going to go so badly. She twisted her hands together. “I still don’t think he knows he’s part _you-know_ ,” Kara whispered at the last minute, maybe a touch dramatically. The fact that Hugo smelled of fae had been the off-hand comment she thought she had mentioned casually to Leah on the phone. Kara had subsequently dropped hints to see if Hugo had worked out what _she_ was but to no avail. She didn’t think he knew she was a werewolf, just as he probably didn’t know one of his parents was part fae.

“Let’s see about that,” Bran replied with alacrity.

Hugo, whose resemblance to a golden retriever was only heightened by the scent of the forest that he carried with him at all times, bounded over. He put his big hand on Kara’s hip and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Hi, I didn’t think I’d see you today,” he said happily, as if Leah and Bran weren’t at all present.

Kara stared up into his big brown eyes, the butterflies in her stomach that had been nerves turning into the ones that she just carried around whenever she saw him. He was so lovely. He was also ridiculously good looking. Like, walked out of the pages of a fashion magazine good looking. He made her mouth water. “I’m just showing my cousin and her boyfriend around campus,” she said in a rush.

He looked away from Kara and was surprised to see the two people who were standing only a yard or two away from them. “I didn’t see you there!” he said to one of the most powerful werewolves in the world, holding out his big hand and shaking it profusely. He did the same to Leah, his smile not once slipping, even though Kara could now feel that he was a little nervous. “Hi. I’m Hugo.” He pointed at Leah. “There’s a family resemblance, I think.”

“You think so?” Leah said, smiling her good smile. “I’m Leah. This is my boyfriend, Bran.” Only Kara could tell that there was a laugh in her voice, a little waver as she said ‘boyfriend’ out loud.

Bran, playing up to the role, put his arm around Leah’s waist. “It’s great to meet you,” he said, looking up. “Kara didn’t mention how… very tall you are.”

“Yes, what are you, six foot four?” Leah asked wistfully. Bran pulled Leah closer to his side, his smile becoming forced. He was a really good actor, Kara thought, pretending as if he might be a little intimidated by Hugo. Though Bran was six foot, and Kara knew he was toned and muscled under his art major clothes, it was more in the style of a runner than Hugo’s upside-down triangle shaped torso that implied he could bench-press a car. Of course, she knew Bran actually could bench press a car and that appearances were very much deceiving.

Hugo, for whom his appearance was of next to no importance, nodded. “I think so.” He laughed, the one which made Kara’s insides all tickly. “Not as tall as my dad, though! Maybe I’m still growing? My mom always said that the men on my dad’s side of the family grow like trees.”

*

Though she was on tenterhooks the entire time, the lunch that Leah had insisted on treating them to was fine. Leah and Bran were almost normal, for them, though Kara got the feeling that Bran spent his entire time with his hand on Leah’s thigh, reminding her to behave.

It was obvious the entire purpose of their visit was to get as much information out of Hugo about his origins as possible, Bran asking quite a few questions that Kara herself had tried to broach before. Hugo continued to be oblivious.

“I guess you didn’t come to see me, then,” Kara said mock-begrudgingly when Hugo went to the bathroom.

“We did. And as a bonus, the fae boy you’re nearly fu—“ Bran did something under the table and Leah amended what she was going to say, “—nearly sleeping with,” she finished, putting the last forkful of cheesecake in her mouth with a moan. “God, that was good.”

Bran pushed the remainder of his towards her seamlessly and she took it with a little smile and a happy wiggle. “I wonder if Ariana might know of his family,” he said thoughtfully, watching Leah eat. “He’s obviously forest fae.”

Leah nodded. “Can you send me a photo of him?” Bran’s eyes narrowed at her question. “ _For Anna_ ,” she claimed, eyes wide with innocence. “She also wants to know what Kara’s boyfriend looks like. And we can torment Asil with it, too.”

Bran obviously didn’t believe this. “Oh _really_.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Kara protested mildly as Leah and Bran faced each other off.

“Why is it my expressing a polite interest in humans, other werewolves, even _vampires_ , is fine, but it’s the fae that really bother you?” Leah asked, almost with academic curiosity.

Her husband bared his teeth at her. “I notice you didn’t say witches.”

“I believe I express more than a polite interest in a witch all the time,” she said, sucking her fork and giving Bran an unmistakably flirtatious look.

Kara was grateful for Hugo’s sudden return to burst the bubble of tension that had suddenly built at the table, the way it sometimes did around Bran and Leah. He dropped down next to her, wiping his damp hands on his jeans. “Hey,” he said, smiling, “what did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Kara said, leaning against him.

*

Hugo cleared his throat, having spent most of the walk back to her dorm telling her _nice_ he had found Leah and Bran, what a great couple they were, how much of a resemblance there was between Kara and Leah. “You know,” he said, the nerves that had all-but abated during lunch reappearing, “my parents are coming up next weekend. They’d love to meet you.”

Kara’s eyes widened slightly. “You told them about me?” she asked.

“Yeah, of course.” He smiled shyly. “I mean, not intentionally. I guess your name just came up a lot. My mom guessed I was seeing someone.”

They were seeing each other? That was like dating, right? Kara wasn’t sure what the etiquette was. She’d never dated in high school. 

She could feel her cheeks going pink. “I’d… I’d like to meet them.”

“You would? That’s great! I’ll tell them. They’ll be really pleased. We can go out for a meal, maybe in the evening? Maybe lunch, too? Ah. My dad’s a vegetarian, is that going to be okay?”

Kara nodded seriously. She would just eat beforehand. Probably a lot, actually. She wouldn’t want to look like a starving beast in front of his parents. “I’ve heard good things about that vegetarian café on Main Street,” she said. 

Hugo beamed and took her hand as they strolled. “That sounds like a great idea.”


End file.
